Eresian gets jail stay and new threat

Wednesday

Jan 9, 2013 at 6:00 AMJan 9, 2013 at 12:31 PM

By Thomas Caywood TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Ara Eresian Jr., a prolific and dogged litigant, was jailed briefly earlier this week for violating a state housing court judge's order and now is wanted on a warrant issued by a federal bankruptcy court judge.

The 58-year-old Shrewsbury man is well-known in local legal circles as a kind of continual plaintiff who sues over real estate deals in which he claims a stake, usually representing himself. In some cases, Mr. Eresian buys the rights to debts or court judgments as a means of inserting himself into bankruptcy cases or foreclosure proceedings.

But the would-be lawyer, who has failed the bar exam five times, apparently is less keen on courtrooms lately. He has skipped two recent hearings in which he was called to answer for failing to comply with court orders.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Melvin S. Hoffman yesterday instructed the U.S. Marshals Service to arrest Mr. Eresian and hold him in custody until he can be brought into court.

“I don't know anything about it. I don't have anything to say,” Mr. Eresian said yesterday afternoon when reached by telephone.

Mr. Eresian failed to show up in court Tuesday for a hearing into why he had not paid $6,772 in legal fees to a Shrewsbury couple he targeted in one of his failed lawsuits. He was ordered to pay the legal fees a year and a half ago by Judge Hoffman.

In addition to issuing the arrest warrant, Judge Hoffman also tacked on another $1,728 in legal fees to the amount Mr. Eresian must pay the couple, Paul and Martha Scheffer.

Mr. Eresian bought the Scheffers' debt to a local heating oil company, making him a creditor with the legal standing to try to revoke the couple's bankruptcy protection. Coincidently, the Scheffers live in a house that Mr. Eresian's parents lost to a foreclosure more than two decades ago. The couple was not involved in the foreclosure and bought the house years later.

“Mr. Eresian has exhibited a pattern of behavior that any reasonable person would find shocking,” Judge Hoffman wrote at the time.

The Scheffers' lawyer, James P. Ehrhard, said in court Tuesday that Mr. Eresian had been locked up by a Housing Court judge in Worcester on Monday but was released later that afternoon and, therefore, available to attend the Bankruptcy Court hearing.

“The pattern with Mr. Eresian is that if he's not put in jail, he doesn't pay,” Mr. Ehrhard said.

Housing Court Judge Timothy F. Sullivan issued a warrant for Mr. Eresian on Monday after he failed to show up for a hearing in that court, records show.

Judge Sullivan found Mr. Eresian in contempt of court in late December for failing to pay $2,850 in damages to a tenant whom he allegedly locked out of an apartment without a proper eviction proceeding. The judge also hit Mr. Eresian with a $1,000 fine for contempt of court and ordered him to allow the tenant to move back into the apartment or a similar one.

Tamika Carpenter told the court last fall that she came home to her Main Street apartment in October to find that Mr. Eresian had moved her belongings outside and screwed the front door shut. A city inspector later ordered Mr. Eresian to remove the screws from the door frame but, on re-inspection a week later, found he had instead added to the barricade by fastening a sheet of plywood over the door, according a city report.

It wasn't clear from court records if Mr. Eresian paid the damages to Ms. Carpenter prior to being released from the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction on Monday afternoon.

Mr. Eresian's lawyer in the case, Israel Sanchez of New Hampshire, did not return a call seeking comment.

For a June 2011 story about his frequent legal maneuvers, Mr. Eresian told the Telegram & Gazette that he simply avails himself of the court system, as is his right.

“I don't see what's out of the ordinary,” he said at the time.

But local lawyers and others interviewed for the story said Mr. Eresian wields the courts as a weapon, seeking unwarranted payments by wearing people down over years with constant motions and appeals.

In one case, after years of litigation over a Bourne Street property, a Worcester Superior Court judge permanently barred Mr. Eresian from ever again filing any motions or pleadings on the matter. The judge also took the rare step of requiring Mr. Eresian to present a copy of the ruling to the Board of Bar Examiners if he ever passes the bar exam and applies to be licensed as a lawyer in the state.